Guests: Dr. Dave Fischer, University of Illinois and Dr. John Goeser, Rock River Lab and co-host, Dr. Jeff Elliott, Balchem This week's episode is a favorite for many as part of our Legacy Series. We are toasting Dr. Mike Hutjens with the University of Illinois. Mike is a pioneer in the field and has combined his love for education and passion for the dairy industry throughout his career. He continues to keep learning to this day. Plus, he was the one who famously coined the term “pubcast” for the Real Science Exchange. The Real Science Exchange is the discussion that happens in the bar after scientific meetings, making the term “pubcast” even more relevant!
Guests: Dr. Mike Hutjens, University of Illinois, Dr. Dave Fischer, University of Illinois, Dr. John Goeser, Rock River Lab and co-host, Dr. Jeff Elliott, Balchem
This week's episode is a favorite for many as part of our Legacy Series. We are toasting Dr. Mike Hutjens with the University of Illinois. Mike is a pioneer in the field and has combined his love for education and passion for the dairy industry throughout his career. He continues to keep learning to this day. Plus, he was the one who famously coined the term “pubcast” for the Real Science Exchange. The Real Science Exchange is the discussion that happens in the bar after scientific meetings, making the term “pubcast” even more relevant!
Joining us to toast Dr. Hutjens is Dr. Dave Fischer, University of Illinois; Dr. John Goeser, Rock River Lab and co-host Dr. Jeff Elliott, Balchem.
Dr. Hutjens reflects on his career, and one industry controversy that dates him was the discussion by producers between high moisture and shell corn. His point is, that there will always be new topics to discuss and research to share with producers. 11:45
Through Dr. Hutjens and Dr. Fischer’s tenure with Extension, priorities and approaches have evolved from regional experts who were an inch deep and a mile wide to very specific focus areas over time. 15:44
Dr. Goeser added his perspective as someone established as a researcher but still evolving in his career and how the specialization in the industry can also create silos of thinking with very narrow areas of focus. 20:42
Dr. Hutjens and Dr. Fischer highlighted one of their biggest accomplishments in evolving producer education is they have successfully moved all of their training online even though the doubters said it wouldn’t work for producers. 29:43
Dr. Goeser shared that we all know the industry is evolving, and research, producers and education must do the same. One obvious example is how much milk each cow produces today compared to 20 or 40 years ago. 42:27
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This podcast is sponsored by Balchem Animal Nutrition and Health. This podcast is sponsored by Balchem. All views expressed by the guests are the opinions of those individuals and are not the views of the Balchem, its affiliates or employees.
Scott Sorrell (00:00:07):
Good evening everyone. And welcome to the real science exchange. In the podcast where leading scientists and industry professionals meet over a few drinks to discuss the latest ideas and trends in animal nutrition. Hi, I'm Scott Sorrell one of your hosts here at the real science exchange, and we have a few things to celebrate tonight. First, this is our 50th episode. We started real science exchange as an extension of our real science lecture series of webinars. And we're so pleased to have developed such a consistent and growing audience. Jeff is our co-host today. Jeff's part of our technical service team and was part of an extensive podcast taping session that we did during the ADSA this year. So welcome back, Jeff. It's always good to have you as a co-host.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:00:48):
All right, appreciate it.
Scott Sorrell (00:00:49):
The second thing about this episode is we're bringing back one of my favorite segments. It's called the legacy series here. We commemorate the pioneers of the industry, taking a look back at their careers and their impacts, and their lives. And tonight we have the honor of celebrating the career and contributions of Dr. Mike Hutchins from the University of Illinois. Mike's no stranger to the real science exchange and it's credited and he's credited with coining the term podcast. Do you remember doing that, Mike?
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:01:20):
I do. I do.
Scott Sorrell (00:01:21):
Yeah. Yeah. Yep. So, so when
Dr. Dave Fischer (00:01:23):
Was that?
Scott Sorrell (00:01:24):
I, I forget which one it was he had done a, he'd done a webinar and then we had, I forget who was on there with you, Mike, but you said, I think you need to start calling this a podcast.
Dr. Dave Fischer (00:01:37):
That's cool.
Scott Sorrell (00:01:39):
So, yeah, I, you know, Mike, I appreciate you agreeing to come here and allowing us to roast your, I mean, toast your career
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:02:00):
And you bet I got my Royal crown right here in my glass here.
Scott Sorrell (00:02:05):
Excellent. You know, I see also that you've brought a couple of guests with you Dave Fisher from the University of Illinois and Dr. John Geer from rock river lab, gentlemen, please tell us what you're drinking tonight.
Dr. Dave Fischer (00:02:20):
Well, I decided to bring out the maker's mark with a splash of Coke, maybe more, more than a flash, but maker's mark is my preferred drink now years ago when I was younger and had no money, beer was kind of on the table, but now maker's mark the history spot.
Scott Sorrell (00:02:37):
Yeah. I like bourbon myself. Yeah. And John, what's in your class tonight?
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:02:43):
Being, being a warmer time of the year we record this, I, tend to side with west coast IPA. So it used to be called Todd, the ax man, but now just shortened up for ax, man. I hate to admit I'm, I'm drinking a beer from Minnesota, but
Scott Sorrell (00:02:57):
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:03:01):
Standing, despite all the great microbrew in Wisconsin, I have to cross the border into the goer state.
Scott Sorrell (00:03:06):
Yeah. Good job. And Jeffrey, what are you drinking tonight?
Dr. John Goeser (00:03:10):
Well, like several of you on here, I've always chosen bourbon, but a lot of times in the summer I switch and I'm drinking a really good Puerto Rican run that I brought back from a vacation I had back in May. So drinking some run tonight.
Scott Sorrell (00:03:24):
All right. Nice. Well, for me I usually have a bourbon, but tonight in honor of Dr. Hutchins, I'm having a, a by Joe. And so if you're not familiar with, by Joe, that is a, that's a Chinese drink. I'm not sure what it's made of, but I'm sure rocket fuels are involved somewhere.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:04:08):
Learn for a marathon. I
Scott Sorrell (00:04:09):
Hear. Yeah, exactly. So
Speaker 6 (00:04:12):
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Scott Sorrell (00:04:34):
You know, Dr. Hutchins is a dedicated ag educator. He won the title of ex-extensionist of the year outstanding teacher in the United States and was the most influential person in the American dairy industry. And he also received a DSA honor award. So Mike, can you kind of give us some background of how it all started? Give us a little taste of your early years.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:04:58):
Well, it's I have pleasure, to join the group here tonight, and it's fairly humbling to be very honest with you. We started in green bay, Wisconsin small dairy farm with 70 cows with my dad and my sister and my mother and my grandparents there. And that was a big farm back in those days. And I remember we would celebrate when ice cream, we, we had a big, big celebration, we'd go and get ice cream. And so when we get our first 10,000-pound herd average, that was an ice cream night. Wow. And about two months later, one cow hit a hundred pounds of milk on DHI and that was another ice cream night. So anyway, that's the dairy background, and growing up, I was active in four H and FFA, and they impacted the kind of where I thought I was gonna go in my career.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:05:39):
When I went to the University of Wisconsin, I was majoring in ag education and extension and then had to get a job. And I thought, well, I'd there was an opening in the dairy science lab in the basement to counting white blood cells. That's a little bit better than ING soybeans, not much, but a, a little bit better counting white blood cells on a slide there for three or four hours at a time that that'll, that'll make you think about where your career choices are going to be. But anyway, I got a chance to meet up with some very good graduate students. At that time, Dr. Don Weisman, somebody would recognize that name was in that lab there. And Russ's ring was in that lab. Steve Larson was in that lab also at, from horn dairyman. And I said, you know, that's a pretty good gig.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:06:24):
And so I, I switched majors and then I majored in, in dairy science, got in getting my degree in the first degree in 1965 at Wisconsin was fortunate to get one of the PR fellowships and stayed at Wisconsin for a masters' in mastitis detection and a Ph.D. in illuminate nutritionist nutrition. And that was under the leadership of Dr. LH Schultz. And he's always known as Dr. Schultz to me, he earned that respect. He was a professor's professor and always wore a tie every day to the office. And every time we had an experiment, we're bleeding cows, he would come down to the barn in his tie-in discover all, and he would bleed cows with us, make sure nothing went wrong or something was happening with one of the cows as well. Also got to meet Dr. Jim Crowley. Some of the older people recognize that name, a very famous extension worker in Wisconsin, and then like college coach was Dave Dixon.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:07:17):
And some of you will recognize that name as well, cuz he was a real icon, in the youth judging coaching career as far as that goes. And then after graduating from the University of Wisconsin, I went up to Minnesota fortunate to get a job there and spent eight years there as an extension dairy specialist due to untimely death up there, I was given the chance to coach a judging team. I was the only one that ever judged cattle in that staff there. So being the new kid on the block, I got the chance to be the college coach up there for about five years. And we were lucky to win the year I left compe, Illinois. We won the national championship there, which I thought was our third best team. Very nice. They, they, they hit her, they hit her as far as another mentor up there.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:07:59):
Would've been Dr. Don OBY who has passed away you know, it's amazing coming outta grad school. John, you might be able to relate to this as well that nobody wanted to know about theca cycle
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:08:25):
Absolutely. Come comes up weekly in conversations.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:08:29):
Yeah. then in 79, I left Minnesota and went to the University of Illinois, and actually, I met Dave fish for the first time at a DHI regional meeting. And I said, who is this young kid? You know, wow. He he's been figuring vitality, you know, and was one of the reasons we came to Illinois and there were other reasons as well, but certainly this, this was, was one of them out there as well. And so we've had 32 wonderful years here at the University of Illinois sprinkled in, there were six years in the army reserve back in, when I was in graduate school at Wisconsin. And we did that and AGR alpha Amarillo was a fraternity that was very influential in my life then. And still, we still have lifelong friends. And, and I, I guess little that I know by joining that organization of the impact that could have in my career I've met my wife there at a beer supper. We'll just leave that alone for now. We can go on that later and was on the judging team. So Scott, maybe that gives you a quick view of the kind of where I came from, how I got in dairy, where I've been, and when I'm probably longer than I should have.
Scott Sorrell (00:09:39):
No, that's fine. Let me circle back though a little bit on your kind of the early years what was the dairy industry like back then and you know, do you have, any stories related to that?
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:09:50):
Well, well, certain certainly are, are dairy farm 70 colleges. That was a big farm. We had a hired band there as well. And so that was
Scott Sorrell (00:09:58):
What would you say was average for Mo so you guys are around 70,
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:10:01):
I'm guessing maybe around 25 to 30. I mean, everybody has pigs. Everybody had chickens on the farm. We raised sugar beets as a side crop there. And, and so it was a very diversified farm, even though we had to, we had, we had 70 cows and of course, like everybody else, we expanded added six more here and eight more there and changed the layout of the barn just a little bit. Then at Minnesota, you know, amazing extension work day when we were at Minnesota, we would end up we had a Stearns county, which at that time was in the top 10 in the United States. And the county had so many farms that when we had an extension meeting, there were four of them, four in each of the co corners of the county because each of them would draw about a hundred, 150 dairy farmers there. And at that time extension was kind of it I know David if you wanna agree with that, but literally, the extension was some of the farmers wouldn't make a move unless the county agent said, yes, Joe, I think that is what you should do as far as that goes, Dave, your comments you're
Dr. Dave Fischer (00:11:00):
The same era, right? AB absolutely. I mean, you know, back then we were the, we were the consultants and even though we tried to take the research and condense it to the efforts to share it, the producer themselves give 'em new ideas and help 'em through some of the ting times. But if there was a decision to be made, they would, they would come to us. And I know they've always would come to Dr. Mike. Now they'll come to me. Second. I was always the second guy on the string, Mike wasn't in the office. Why that, I guess I'll call Fisher. Maybe he, he can help me out too type relationship is what I'm hearing here.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:11:41):
Dr. Dave Fischer (00:11:42):
That's what you're hearing
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:11:45):
It. It's interesting, Scott maybe some of the listeners that have got a little more vintage at my age there a high moisture ear, corn and shell corn was a huge controversy. And Dr. Howard at the Marshfield ment station was doing some classic work on comparing those two feeds a chain, chain feeders, a cow, wear a chain, and it would turn on the grain feeder automatically. And she could stand there all day if she wanted to eat grain, but that was a big breakthrough to get more grain in cows when you weren't in stanchion barns, as far as that goes. And the other one that perhaps it found interesting was we call cafeteria mineral feeders. And, back in those days, they put this feeder out in the cow yard and there'd be maybe 12 to 14 boxes. And the cow then would go out and decide is today, should I eat zinc? And tomorrow, should I eat salt? The next day should eat Bena, you know? And that was a really hot topic. And so we did some research at our experiment station over two years to see what did cows do when exposed to these boxes and tracked it every day, as far as that goes. So none of that technology is here today, but it's a dynamic that kind of dates what's going, what's going on?
Scott Sorrell (00:12:53):
Well, I'm curious what the results were. I'm gonna take it that certain cows had a proclivity for different minerals and, they weren't good at balancing their rations.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:13:02):
Well, that was it. Then, the ration was all balanced. Now Jay might argue, and John with me that we balance the rations to meet all the cow's requirements. They were all known for luxury consumption and they could always find salt and bentonite, we moved it around and they'd find salt. And those are the two that they would tend to seek out and find and consume. And they would eat probably, you know, a 10th of a pound to buy carb. Yes, there was buy a carb in the ration and they'd eat maybe a quarter pound of bentonite and they were on no dirt. So obviously that became, a pretty nice substitute for maybe consuming clay mineral.
Scott Sorrell (00:13:40):
Yeah. Dave, I found it interesting that you said you guys were the nutritionist back then for the dairy farmers, how many, or what size of territory did you have, and how many farmers would you theoretically consult for?
Dr. Dave Fischer (00:13:54):
Well, basically when I started with extension in 1971 I started as a county advisor county extension advisor county farm advisor, whatever. And I was always gunning for a dairy position, but at that time the county person had to do everything, you know, everything from tomato hornworms to balancing ration for dairy cows, whatever. But so I, I enjoyed working in two or three different counties I did to get to the county Clinton county, Illinois, which was again like Mike talked about Stearns up at the Stearns county from Minnesota Clinton county, Illinois was a very strong dairy county. So I went in there as a county advisor, which allowed me to work with, we had over 354 dairy farms in Clinton county back in 1980. Now there's probably about 45 dairy, or maybe, maybe more than that, maybe about, about 60 dairy farms or so, but bottom line I, I then back in about 1990, took over statewide responsibility as a dairy educator.
Dr. Dave Fischer (00:14:58):
So from 71 to about 90, the first, first 18, 20 years, I worked pretty much as the county with a regional dairy emphasis, regional being about seven, 10 county area. And then back in 92, we restructured in Illinois. That's when I got a chance to work full speed ahead on, on the state. And one of the reasons I go ahead, John, sorry, one of the reasons I could do that's because I had this good friend colleague coworker, Dr. Mike, who allowed me to do that is interesting. Some of my colleagues in agronomy their state specialists up on campus. We're not real happy that these county people would wanna come over and take responsibility where Dr. Mike just, Hey, fish, come on. Let's do it. So that was a good, a good plus for me to have work with Mike.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:15:44):
And I guess what I'd add, Scott and John, is that showed how the extension was changing then. And that was a change for the better we ended up having two dairy specialists, I think three or four SW a couple in beef. And, and then, and so it, it, extension leadership said, we, we think we need to get more expertise out in the regional areas and that, that worked well. And of course, boy, it just keeps changing again. We can talk about that a bit later if we wish.
Dr. John Goeser (00:16:12):
Yeah. So a question on that and Dave, I heard you refer to it as an educator. Yeah. So do you find that synonymous with extension or was it a different role?
Dr. Dave Fischer (00:16:24):
Oh, I think I find that synonymous with extension, you know, again we were, we were challenged to be able to stay abreast as best we could on, on our specialty area. And that's what I enjoyed back when we were able to specialize in a certain area. I just did dairy after 1992. And so yeah. And so my role was that of educator, you know, put on programs not as much on foreign consulting, even though we still did it, but then we had people like John, who was a specialist in his role and, and they were coming on the scene. Now we're being more and more consulted in the feed industry like yourself, Jeff C, but educator would be what I son with
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:17:10):
And, you know, Jeff, we, we called advisors. So, Dave, you were an advisor at one time. Yeah. And then he became an educator. We did not have county agents. Now those crooks in Wisconsin, had county agents. And so did we have them in Minnesota county agents, but we are always known as advisors here. Right. And so they transitioned to the word educator. And I think Dave, that, that kind of gave you the the one up like, well is a step up from the right. Being, the advisor,
Dr. Dave Fischer (00:17:36):
He, the county advisor. Right. Right. And I was very pleased that I could work with you. Mike had mentioned several people there from, from Minnesota staff and, and El my staff. But Jeff, you, you were there in Elma, you know, the the Jimmy Clarks and the Jim leys and all those good guys that I was able to work with in addition with, with Mike and, and, and also, you know, Dick Wallace and other people like that. But I think that extension has made another change since Mike and I retired back in 2010 be that right or wrong that happened. They moved away from being more in the production agriculture and more in the general again. Yeah. Enough said on that one.
Scott Sorrell (00:18:23):
So what, what, what caused that change? That's it?
Dr. Dave Fischer (00:18:27):
Good, good question, Scott. Good question. I'm not, I think maybe trying to be everything to everybody got a lot into the master gardener areas and, and a lot more in the general clientele, there
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:18:48):
Have been differences in, in funding from a, from a us a, from a federal standpoint as well that have contributed.
Dr. Dave Fischer (00:18:53):
I, I don't remember for sure. I know we were, you know, certainly funded, you know, through federal state, and local, and I'm not sure John, that that's exactly what started it. I think just the idea of someone's dying change man, and everybody, everybody makes changes, but yeah.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:19:12):
And, and let's, let's pick on ball cam as an example, you have some tremendous people in your staff there that provide support to the dairy industry. And, and so some of the administrators said, well, you dairyman, you've got other sources you can go with. And also, by the way, you've got the wherewithal, you can buy that, you know, so we're gonna go to more of urban flavor, more of a small dairy farm, the more that direction as well. So in some respects, the, the the, the support industries came into bat here. And I, I, I smile because perhaps the one that CA really off his R BST they had tremendous horsepower in terms of personnel, more so than most land grant colleges even could dream about doing at this point. And they were going to the farms.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:20:01):
In fact, in Illinois, we had, a gentleman hired that would deal with farms under 500 cows. And then, these other ones would come in with her over 500 cows. And so they were very specialized. And then I, I guess I'd add to that Dave and John the, the the clientele also have high expectations. They're not gonna come to a dairy meeting just to eat a donut and, and have lunch. They want specific answers, that's gonna fit to their farms. And in that case, if you go to their farm and you spend a half a day on that farm, be it with ball cam, or be it with some other firm that you can make some, some headway in terms of maybe helping solve some challenges or find some new opportunities.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:20:42):
Mike, I think you hit on, on, one aspect of, of, of the changing over the last that we've seen over the last few decades with regards to extension, certainly the specialization. So, Dave, as you were talking about before the wide breadth of knowledge that you needed to carry from your extension and educator support role and where we are now today, we are very specialized. And so from, from my perspective as an adjunct professor with the University of Wisconsin, but then working in the rock laboratory world and also offer some private consulting when I, when I sit next to somebody on a plane and describe what I do, it's, it's not that I'm in the dairy industry. It's not that I'm in agriculture, it's, that I'm a dietician for animals. And even within that, I focus on a very specific segment of animals and in ruminants and dairy cattle, and then carbohydrates are, are my forte.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:21:25):
So I, I think where, where we've transitioned to the industry providing more support certainly than we were 15, 20 years ago, it, it comes with that specialization and, and desire to, to offer expertise in, in more specialized areas. Like I'm gonna come back and, and toss some praise your direction, though. This is something I've admired that I've experienced from, and, and seen you get done over the last decade to two is staying current and staying kind of on the cutting edge of, of, of if you will, of science and not necessarily just in the carbohydrate area like I spoke to before, but looking at protein and mineral acids other nutritional solutions in strategies in the diets, as well as carbohydrates. And you've done an exceptional job, I think back to just a couple of weeks ago at a meeting where Dr. Dave Combs, one of my mentors and I were, were up speaking, and who's in the front row taking notes on us, keeping us to task, but Mike cuts,
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:22:35):
Well,, I think that's one of the real challenges and John for our listeners. That's one reason we have John on the link here, cuz I think you're kind of the future kind of where where this where the leadership and education are gonna come from. And cause ball cam is on here with Jeff same, same, same story that you, you, people are going to be providing more of them, I call the education leadership here because obviously your, your, your companies have said this is important to our business as far as that goes. And I think David, that's a little bit of a problem. We had, our business was strictly education. And so we had to earn our money. In other words, we had to put on clinics and that tried to earn some travel money as far as that goes as well.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:23:18):
So, John, I think it's, that's why you're here today. And, and so to answer your question, that's always a challenge, I guess I always enjoy you're reading progressive and hor dairyman. And I know you're authors in both of those magazines and, and the other ones as well, kind of seeing who's writing on what topic and kind of what angle they're taking. And, and I, I was talking with Scott a bit earlier. I said, you know, right now everything is feed costs. And the question is how many times can we write about feed costs to make it look like a, a fresh topic and, and make it look new or, or exciting to read or, or a new concept or idea. And, and that's why I'm pretty jealous of you, John, because you've got this great big testing lab behind you there, which is all this data, you know, that you know, I, I was critical of some of my nutritionists here at Illinois and Minnesota that they would have all this feed information and yet they were just gonna look acid. And yet they had dry matter intakes had body gauge scores, they had feed particle size and that never saw the light of day. And yet you got the ability to pull that data and make it work. And, and as a source of information. So, John, that's a real challenge. How do you keep getting fresh ideas on topics when you do not have a research group or lab, or in your case, a testing lab, to draw information from a good question.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:24:42):
It's, it's one of the reasons that I remain committed to, the rocker laboratory family. And I, I didn't necessarily understand the opportunity that that would be in front of us in, in front of myself when, when beginning work about a decade ago with the laboratory, but you're right, Mike, I mean, we're on the cutting edge. And at some level, I would consider myself an extension agent on steroids, if you will, because of what we have in data and what we're seeing in trends, and the questions we get from the field as well. We tend to be on the front edge.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:25:09):
Yeah. And, and it's, it's, it's pretty interesting cuz there's probably two or three or four times a year. I reach out to John asking him for any data that he might have on for quality or unique feedstuff or an experience that they would have out there in the program. So certainly you become a resource and I guess if there's anything I would go and another reason why Dave is on today and that is a team effort. And so when Dave came on as an educator here he took over an area, an area that we, we couldn't cover that included youth activities that included a forage production that we had no skill set there because the crop science people said, we're gonna go corn soybean. So they retired their, their, their, their, their, their forage specialists and a forage researcher out there in the program. So Dave took that over there and then he also developed some skillset in manure and housing and certainly big topics, big topics, as far as that goes, cuz again, our engineers that we had, he retired and they didn't replace him either. So Dave filled in some, some really neat things on our team and that's how we saw it as a, as a team we had to go with, along with Dick Wallace.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:26:18):
So, Dave was the manure expert, Mike, it wasn't yourself. I, we've talked a lot about less starch over the past few decades and
Dr. Dave Fischer (00:26:25):
Good part
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:26:25):
Manure expert, but it it's actually, Dave is what I'm
Dr. Dave Fischer (00:26:28):
Hearing. Well, you're right though, John Mike would talk about them, that pie, the pumpkin pie manure pile, and Mike would talk about a lot of the manure stuff. And sometimes he got a little nickname of, he knows his manure, you know, and but yeah, and, and Mike
Scott Sorrell (00:26:45):
Sounds like a t-shirt to me
Dr. Dave Fischer (00:26:47):
Scott Sorrell (00:27:24):
We were talking earlier about changes and what may be caused by the changes in the extension and the need for extension, and how much of it had to do with the changing needs of the dairy farmer. They've gotten larger in the period that, that, that you've been an extension different geographies have, have gotten larger, other smaller. What role did that play in, in the need and in the role that extension played in that?
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:27:53):
Well, I'll kick it off and simply say that as I may have inked a bit earlier that farmers most of them, the general meetings would cover a wide SW SW of information. And, and yet that farmer wants a very specific answer. Why are my cows lame? Why is my butterfat test low or high, whatever the case is gonna be? So I, I, I think they're becoming much more targeted in terms of the information they want very knowledgeable. They listen, they read the same articles I read. Some of them read the same journal of dairy science that I read as well. And so very sophisticated. So they're, they're very knowledgeable at this stage of the game. And our are keen that they want to have the the right answers. And if you look at the PD P w for example, very targeted programs it used to be, they'd always have a feeding school.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:28:44):
Well now it's, you know, it's gonna be a lameness school or it's gonna be one on economics and, and, and bookmarking and stuff like that. So I, I think the clientele has forced some of that, you know, and a lot of that is one on one. And on David, I would suggest that was not seen as a real, a real plus for you. And you went up for a promotion or tenure. You didn't say how many farms visits you made a year. The question was, how many articles did you write, or how much money did you bring in, for example, those were kind of the benchmarks. And that might be a little bit different than if you were working for an Elanco or, or ball cam or something like that
Scott Sorrell (00:29:21):
Seems to me like, the need for education is, is expanding exponentially with technology and, and the things that we're currently learning about the nutritional needs of animals. Are we meeting the the producers need today? And if not what do we need to do to meet those that information transfer?
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:29:43):
Well, I'm a little biased here and I'll let Dave jump in here as well. Cuz he was one of my instructors as well, but we elected in 1999 to go online with classes. So if you could get to the internet, then you could take our classes as far as that goes. And those were college-certified classes by the graduate school. So if you were a getting a degree at the University of Illinois or Iowa State or Texas a and M we had about 14 universities that would send students to us to take our class as an elective. And they would take a final exam, they'd get grades, but they would, they would go to class. But about a third of those people in that class were dairy farmers, farmers who wanted to know more specifically about feeding and nutrition and some had huge successes with it.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:30:32):
And we had one dairyman who wrote after the third appear class period, said, I got my money out already. The changes we did, I got my money back already. So I'm gonna start making money on you guys now. And of course, our trick was we wanted 10% of the profits, Dave and I, but that never seemed to the check, never seemed to get to us in the, in the mail as far as that goes. Right. So certainly I, I think that that was certainly a, a new way of delivery. Then of course here comes col and that shuts down all the meetings. There was two years, I had no face-to-face meetings. John, maybe you had some, but I, I didn't have any, I didn't have any, as far as that goes. And, and so now the question is how you, how do you deliver?
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:31:13):
And, and of course, we then have something we call zoom or go to a webinar or stream the the platform we're on today, you know, stream yard, certainly that becomes another way of delivering information. And they said, well, farmers will never do that. Well, just go to PD P w and see what they've done with their online classes. Look at, you've done Scott here with BA Kim, the number of people that come to your programs that either live or probably even more so when they're recorded, because, you know they can't be here at two o'clock in the afternoon. They they're, they're, they're doing something else, but you know, at eight o'clock at night, they can go to the website, download it and listen, listen to the presentation. So certainly those are gonna be very futuristic things. And, of course our class then got picked up by the Santa Fe Institute.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:32:05):
And so now it is available in English, Portuguese just completed here this last month in Spanish, and it's gonna be, believe it or not, translated into Iranian. And so it's gonna be available in those languages there. And of course, you can guess what the next language they would like to do, and it's called Chinese, but they don't have the tie to it yet to be able to deliver the package as far as that goes. So I, I, I think this distance learning online and basically for those of you that aren't aware of it we committed that once a week, I mean, once a month, we will go live and it's fair game. Any questions you wanna raise, we will try to answer. And it's just amazing the the level of questions, some are very high tech to the point that I gotta get back to you next month. Be sure you come back, we'll have an answer for you or some that are very straightforward that farmers would've asked 10 years ago, as far as that goes, because we're, we're going to middle east countries or going to China where again, not a very sophisticated industry at this point. So certainly John, you may wanna, and Dave, you may wanna jump in here and, and add two or subtract from that.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:33:22):
What I'd speak to is Scott, you posted the question, have, have we met the needs of, the, the dairy industry? And, and I would say no because that's, that's an insatiable thirst, if you will, the the, the needs, the demands, the the quest for continued education, continued knowledge transfer. It's never-ending as Dave. We have, and Mike, you and I have, have done work domestically and abroad. There are certainly differences between the United States and, and domestic education and, and then abroad, for example, working in South America, it it it's gonna be at a different tier, perhaps a little bit more rudimentary abroad relative to the United States. Or there may be a, a bit further, a bit broader of a knowledge base, but it it's, it's, we'll never, we'll never meet the needs per se. We'll never answer all the questions to be answered. And I think what Mike speaks to is the desire to learn more and, and to use different communication channels. It's been amazing how that's evolved and, and how we've adapted and evolved as an industry. Dave,, your thoughts.
Dr. Dave Fischer (00:34:28):
No, I'm, I'm picking up exactly what you guys were saying. And you know, I think also over the last 10, 15 years even in the conferences that, that I was involved with a poor state me, you know, for state conferences and we have had a large turnout of audience, of, of participants, but probably about 90% of 'em were the consultants. And so again, Mike indicated that the producers are out there trying to pick up as much as they can, but I think we also see because everyone has such a full plate that they are allowing or asking their specialists, their, their, their, their consultants to, to go get the information and bring it back to us. And again, that's a little bit different from what we used to know when Mike and I would do 10 to 12 dairy days a year do some night meetings with that, do some farm visits with that, all the one-on-one. And we just weren't doing that anymore because again, everyone's, producer's plates were so full. People like John came in and started networking with other, other industry people and were able to fill the gap as an educator, as well, along with Jeff and others,
Scott Sorrell (00:35:42):
You know, we've been talking about how technology's gonna help knowledge transfer to humans, right? And, and I can't help, but wonder is we gonna go too far? Do we, are we gonna need to educate humans if we have, right? We've got artificial intelligence, and machine learning sensors, we're able to sense all kinds of biology and understand it. Isn't gonna come a day when we have a machine like Watson on every farm, that's making the decision and spitting out the the report to your, your phone that tells you what to do? You don't need to know anything. And
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:36:15):
Let, let me jump in on that because I'm, I'm tied in with a, a few different groups from, from a networking perspective where we're getting into that. If I would retrace my steps and I, I certainly don't know the first thing about artificial intelligence and machine learning, but I'm, but I'm, I'm learning no pun intended alongside some of my colleagues that are far more skilled in that area. And Scott, my vision is that there will always need to be a human intelligence component. I believe that, in the next five to 10 years, and, and certainly in my career, there will be an evolution in what consulting, advising, and education look like. There, there will likely be less individuals of, of Dr. Hutchins of Dr. Fisher's caliber. But those that are of, of, of this caliber will be a positions to help steer rather than perhaps be on farm every couple of weeks or, or, or once a month.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:37:03):
So there will be novel and innovative decision making tools tools and products that aid in decision making, but there will always be in my vision a need for that human intelligence component. And part of it is rooted in, do we have even 50% of dairy nutrition in this dairy cow figured out I would argue, no, there's so much that, that we don't have any idea of, of, of what's happening within the room in from a, a biochemistry and biology and microbiology standpoint. So those are some of my thoughts being in the mix with, with some of these developing technologies at the moment,
Scott Sorrell (00:37:37):
You know, kind of a follow up to that, John is I'm, I'm kind of wondering if you were advising students today going into college, what kind of classes would you advise them, or what kind of curriculum, or, or even advising you know, universities, what kind of curriculum should we be designing for the, the, the, the next generation of dairyman
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:37:58):
Core scientific foundation? Certainly enrolling in, in following Dr. Hutchins online course, which I'm hopeful that we can get access to and from, from different institutions that is, but, but a core foundation and then recognize that much, much of the, the students education will happen after graduating. I mean, there, there's just one, one thing that was quite profound. And, and I, I had the opportunity to work with my, my late father for a couple years coming outta graduate school. I had a bunch of letters behind my name. I had degrees. I thought that the world was just gonna fall down. Like Domino's in front of me, come, come to find out. I see Mike, Mike and Dave chuckling, nobody gave a flying crap, had behind my name. Right. And there were, there were a couple consultants that I had the opportunity to work with.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:38:43):
My dad was a little bit, a little bit softer in how he steered me along and as, as his firstborn, but they, we need, we need to prove, prove ourselves and, and, and sort of this education by fire, right? The, the, the producer or the, the, the colleague consultants, they're looking at you to provide them a practical answer. They don't want to hear an academic response. Mike, I think back to Sean Shau, one of our meetings down in Effingham when I was there. And, and you were there providing some great insights. We were doing shaker box contests, perhaps Colonel processing score with, with a wide audience. And Sean had brought me down to talk about C genetics. And I, at that point was, was fairly green in my career being a year or two outta graduate school. And I gave a, gave a response, well, if this, then that, or it depends on this, it depends on that. And Sean sat me down after the meeting, he said, John, nobody cares about your academic response. They want you to help. 'em Make an answer, get, get to a, get to a decision. And that that's the type of education that happens postgraduate. So Scott coming back to your question, and then I look forward to, to Mike and Dave's thoughts, just a, a solid foundation, which with then we can build upon.
Dr. Dave Fischer (00:39:53):
Yeah, again, I follow what John is saying, and, and Scott definitely have to have that human human touch on interpreting again, all the information back 40, 40, 50 years ago, we had to have that human touch and we have to have it now. They just have so much more to in their database that they can, they can use and make a little bit more sophisticated decisions maybe, but have to have the human knowledge has to be there. Mm-Hmm
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:40:20):
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:41:19):
And so the question was, well how, how do we know this genomics is really working or should say genomics, but gene regulation. And of course the answer is
Dr. John Goeser (00:42:27):
So Mike, with, with all these things we're talking about, and you mentioned earlier, your family forum is 10,000 pounds. When I started in this industry, we talked for example, crude protein. And then few years later, we go to met metabolizable protein. And now we're bouncing for amino acids. So from 10,000 to easily 30,000 pound cows now, but how, and we've seen that those cows at a Wisconsin, those record breaking cows, but how far do you think we can go in the future? Cause I never, would've thought we'd got these record breaking cows 20, 30 years ago. What they're doing now at 200 pounds a day on average.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:43:09):
Yeah. Yeah. Well, certainly when you see these record cows that are producing 70,000 pounds of milk plus with very good components, cause remember that's how we're paid here in the Midwest. We gotta have the components that go with that. So I guess Jeff, my answer is until we get a new record cow that gets us up to 75,000 pounds of milk, we just saw some Holstein cow in the paper that made 300 and, and 20,000 pounds of milk a lifetime Holstein cow. And not only that, but she was excellent David. She was a, she a 94 95 score cow. So besides producing lots of milk, she was functionally a very functional cow as well. But I, that's a good question. And I think goes back to John's comment that we're not really totally sure exactly what microbiome we need to have in the room to get that cow to do it because we, we know that room is changing and there was a study done, a very small study, I think came out of the, the forage center there.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:44:03):
They, they took the roomed contents of cows and switched it. And lo and behold, they were vastly different. And about was a week or 10 days later, guess what? Those cows went right back to where they were before, even though they had changed all the room and contents, something was, was impacting the, the room environment. So I think this room, John and David, just, just a amazing mystery in terms of exactly what is actually driving that. And of course, ball cam, you've got products that you're gonna be putting in there to try to manipulate, to improve not only the room, but also what about the liver? What about the ma gland? What about the kidney, all these other organs that have to work together to allow this cow to what, what she's doing here today.
Scott Sorrell (00:44:49):
Yeah. It's interesting. You refer to the Roman as a mystery. I mean, we've had scientists studying it for years and yet it's still a mystery and it's amazing. I, I actually think we need more microbiologists out there. I think we've, we don't have enough of 'em today, so yeah. Keeps us all employed though.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:45:07):
Yeah. Scott, the sad thing is we had a powerful group here with Mars Bryant and Bob hepo and that, and now they're all gone and they're replaced with people that are working in manure management. Those kinds of areas there because that's where the funding is. That's where they get the grants from. So you know, unless ball cam is gonna sponsor some of that research, there's a pretty good chance that we're not gonna be doing a lot of stuff or researching some of those, what I call pretty critical areas and hats off to those Canadian dairy farmers. They, they have a group there that they have checkoff dollars and then they have their faculty compete for those projects. And of course those projects are usually very applied. And so suddenly now Canada's got some people at Guelph in British Columbia and Alberta that are doing some fairly applied research.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:46:01):
And let me tell you, applied research at Illinois will get you nothing basically. It doesn't really count. It has to be a, a U S D a or federal grant of some sort and has to be that because as most of our listeners know, half that money is taken off by the university that supports the, the, the college to, and, and the department and the university. And, and so if ball cam comes in and wants to do a research study, then by and large that may help that researcher to hire a graduate student or to, but sure it doesn't help the college. And therefore it doesn't count for these young professors to gain tenure and, and promotion.
Scott Sorrell (00:46:44):
And Mike, I think we could do a whole podcast on, on research funding and how it should be done and how it's being done. It's I think it's a gap. But yeah, I mean, we find it, we, we need, we, we, we have a problem getting universities with enough cows sometimes and finding finding places to do our research. And then, and then it is compounded by the over HEADSS that we have to pay for the research it's, it's getting difficult,
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:47:09):
But Scott J just as, as hu Hutchins has evolved throughout his career to, to continue having an impact. That's what we're having with our research programs, looking at collaborative opportunities with, with academia and allied industry. And so to, to bridge the gap between industry and academia or, or scientific institutions, that's how we can continue toward additional applied research projects going into the future. That's my vision.
Scott Sorrell (00:47:34):
Yeah. We need more basic research still going back to the the, the, the room and stuff it needs to be done. If it's, if it's funded by industry today, they're usually looking for a a near term product, right? They're, they're, they're, they're developing something, but we need some funding, some basic stuff to, to, to really understand that room and among other things. Anyway, I'm getting outta my, outta my lane, Mike,
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:47:58):
No, you're doing fine, but I, I guess that's the beauty that we probably have at the us forage research center that is a federally funded research area. There's one up in Peoria, but they used to do agricultural stuff. David, I don't think they're doing anything in agriculture anymore, but they used to have some scientists up there, but those are some of the locations that might be able to do some of those things. But again, it depends on the type of scientists that are gonna be in those positions and what those expectations are going to be. And I, I smile here because one of the really good ones, Mary Beth hall talks about some of her limitations, what she cannot do, where she cannot go. And, and, and because the, of the regulations of of, of the institution that she works for,
Scott Sorrell (00:48:42):
You know,
Dr. John Goeser (00:48:43):
My, one of my, one of my regrets since being at Bache is when I was not able to go to China with you. And that's why I had to sense Scott. I can't remember why I couldn't go, but my team there was so excited. Oh, my Hutchins is coming. My Hutchins is coming. They were so excited. But so you've traveled a lot of places. What are some of your favorite places you've been?
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:49:04):
Well, certainly I, I, I think going to New Zealand was probably one of the, the, the really good place to go. I'm a little biased, you know, I'm not sure I speak English very well, but that's the only language I can speak. And, and that's a real problem in China, in Japan, wonderful discussions are going on, but I don't have a co what they're talking about, you know, and I just kind of wish. Have
Dr. John Goeser (00:49:27):
You ever, have you ever been to Northern Ireland? I have more trouble with those guys. Then
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:49:32):
Know when I was in Ireland, there was something called a war going up there. So they didn't take a neighbor close to Northern Ireland as far as that goes. But then again, Jeff, if you go down to Louisiana, I have a little trouble down to Louisiana of, of understanding, understanding people as far as that goes. But certainly I, I, I would certainly rank a New Zealand Australia's favorites. First of all, the language, second of all, they, they, that was a pasture based systems. We got a chance to go to some research facilities and have some very Frank discussions. If, if you talk about a tough meeting, I was brought the first time into New Zealand by the feed grain association to sell corn. Guess how well that went over in New Zealand, the back about 30 years ago, you know, at this point, you know, I just kind of the, the devil himself, you know, but anyway, I, I enjoyed those countries there.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:50:23):
Japan is a fascinating country, but much like Wisconsin, you go up into haka and you, you think you you're in Wisconsin, again, as far as that goes as well, we didn't give a chance to go to Saudi Arabia on actually a consulting thing, amazing 7,000 cows in the desert, in the desert, in the desert, 140 degrees. And these cows are averaging 40 liters of milk. And of course the princes wanted even more. And I, I had a great suggestion for him, even though the herdsman said, I will be in trouble. I said, why are you not freshening these cows in the winter in there. And he said, because we make more money selling milk in the summer and we will sell clobber milk in the summer. And that's the end of that discussion. So we kind kind of moved on, but those are some of the, the favorite ones.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:51:08):
The, the, the fun stops in China. Scott would know that as well. We got to go on some, some farms, as far as that goes, needless to say, I tend to be taller and wider than most Chinese consultants. And of course, showering in and showering out of a farm is eye opening.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:52:22):
I love to play off just question and, and I've admired your ability to deliver messages and to carry an audience. I, I, in fact, I, I studied it to some extent and conversations earlier with, with colleague, I I've got the book made to stick here that I, I read at one point by chip and Dan Heath, why some ideas survive and others die. And upon reading this book, I recognize there, there are a number of aspects of what they recommend that whether you studied it or developed it through experience, you are an exceptional sought after speaker. So my, my question is, is, is, is in this, around this topic, what is your most memorable? If you could pick one or two speaking engagement over the last decade, few decades, one sticks out to you.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:53:06):
Wow. Is there another question we could answer?
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:53:13):
You, you, you know, I, I, I guess the, the Western dairy conferences always impressed me the chance to it. It's a big conference. They've got some real hunting edge dairy farmers there. They are there, they are there. And so I've always enjoyed that opportunity to speak there just because of the, of the, the, the number and the, the type of people that are there and the environment everybody is there for to learn something and then have a little bit of fun too. And so you'll see him in the casino, those once in a while losing money, that's always good for a dairy farmer that that's they, they know all about losing money. So that works out well. I enjoyed the China experience as well, very formal. The, the settings are, are, are, and hotels, very classy. All the chairs are covered as far as that goes.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:54:05):
And that the amazing thing was that we, we have a, somewhat of a following in China. And so to get your picture taken with the speaker is a big thing. And, and so you have to devote about an hour, a day to have your pictures taken. And of course, then if they are really aggressive, they take them over to a photo mark, and then they bring them back. And then you sign the picture with that person's name, whatever, whatever his name, they write it on a piece of paper. And that's that's a, a treasure, I guess, or something that they, they like to have. So those are maybe two that, that come to mind, but they, you know, that's a really fun question. And, you know, I betcha we do this again about five or six o'clock night. I could even have a better answer, but those were very, very memorable. As far as that goes,
Dr. John Goeser (00:54:50):
Mike, they're probably selling those pictures and making some money on
Dr. Dave Fischer (00:54:57):
I agree, Jeff, that does not wanting him. They just a little cash.
Scott Sorrell (00:55:03):
Mike. I just finished my my by Joe. Do, do you remember what you say when, when they they, they, they toast you, they say gum by
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:55:11):
Gum by that's right. That's right. Gum by gum by that means Bo bottoms up bottom.
Scott Sorrell (00:55:16):
Of course, exactly.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:55:16):
That's right. And then of course, if you're in China, if you're a good participant, then you, you have to toast everybody back. And so suddenly after about 10 or 12 by Joes the, the world, the world kind of melts away,
Scott Sorrell (00:55:31):
We get pretty smart. Don't we, after
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:55:32):
Really smart. And the smartest thing we discovered was that if you put water in there, cuz there's always water right there, you feel as soon as you bottoms up, you fill it with water again. Yeah. Because otherwise they come around and fill your glass up and then we discovered quickly we could, we could buy Joe with the best of them.
Scott Sorrell (00:55:48):
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:55:50):
Boy, I tell you learned that it's a it's long, it's a long or a short night. However you wanna look at it
Scott Sorrell (00:55:55):
Very well.
Dr. Dave Fischer (00:55:56):
All I know Scott man gang, is that you never wanna speak after my touches. I mean, yeah. You always wanna talk before him. And actually my there's always been very gracious while we were doing all the dairy days. He would be the one say, I'll start at 10 o'clock because we know those dairy men won't be there yet. But in my mind, I'm saying, let Mike start at 10 o'clock cause that will bring the dairyman there at 10 o'clock. And so again Mike, you do have that special tell that John mentioned it's amazing, amazing, amazing.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:56:26):
You know, I, I, I go back to Dave Dixon. Rest is soul. When I left the university of Wisconsin, went to Minnesota, he said, Mike, and I remember what's important here. He says, half of what you say is important, but the other half is how you say it. And so I did a lot of stealing from people like Jim Crowley and, and people that would present programs. And still we go to the day, we just were at the, for state conference and Jim ley was speaking just a, a classic speaker, very precise, very polished. I going, wow. That's, that's pretty cool too. So you, you know, you're always kind of bar borrowing and you, I watched Jeff speak, I even borrow some things from Jeff and, and said, you know, we would you know, that's an interesting way to twist bill Weiss.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:57:12):
If you get a chance to listen to bill Weiss, how he can, how he can, how he can take very complex ideas and even make him simple enough that even I can understand as far as that goes. Yeah. And I, I smiled at the four state because we had four people from the committee speak and one of the four, I had no idea what he was talking about, you know, and I'm, I'm sure everybody else did, but I sure did. But the other three, just Jim Drake, Lee was just classic, just classic. So John, I appreciate your comments on that. A lot of that is borrowed watching people, how they do it. And then, then of course not only how they do it, but kinda watch the people and see what they're, what they're writing down. I guess that's always a, another factor that if I think if we got a good speech, then most of you companies will have some type of writing material there that if they aren't writing anything down, then obviously you miss the mark cuz they there's nothing they have to remember or take back to the owner, whatever the case is.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (00:58:10):
Well, like I, I, I'm certainly desiring to follow on your footsteps and you speak to borrow, I, I have borrowed and learned a tremendous amount from how you deliver messages, how you carry the audience and you, you keep it jovial yet also educational. So there, there's only a couple individuals that I really desire to walk in their footsteps with, with you being one of 'em. So trust that I'm, I'm gonna be borrowing and lifting from
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:58:31):
You.
Dr. John Goeser (00:58:37):
And Mike, I, I would agree with that. You know, when I came to the university of Illinois, 1989, young kid out of Kentucky really didn't know what I wanted to do. And even by then you were bigger than life. And, and Jim Drake, Lee taught me a lot. He taught me how to think critically and I I've never forgot that. And you know, when I'm out there, just think critically how to evaluate, but knowing what I know now too, in the area I took, rather than academic going into the field, I wish I'd taken the time to have spent more time with you and just learn what you know while I was at Illinois, especially. So
Dr. Mike Hutjens (00:59:20):
Yeah, that's the Jeff that's an interesting thought, you know, and, and we had some professors who would send their grad students with us to the four state meeting and they'd ride in the car. Let me tell you four hours, north and four hours south, you get to cover a lot of ground and a lot of philosophy and some ideas. In fact, the biggest problem I have, you don't have that problem, John, but you know, we'd make farm visits. Well, we we'd, we'd some cases we'd take two or three graduate students and do a farm visit, man. That was really effective. Those farmers thought it was great. They said, oh, you gotta come back next week or next month. And I'm going, you gotta be kidding me. You know, it took us three hours to get there and three hours to get home and three hours on the farm because the kids had to get home.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (01:00:05):
They, they could, they could spring for one day. But if, if there's a role, you know, in the dairy challenge and we all know about dairy challenge, that that has really opened up that avenue a bit. Cuz now we have a professor at most universities that will train six or eight kids for the dairy challenge and that's a skill that's gonna be so valuable. Judging, judging is okay. Critical thinking, giving reasons that's good as well. But boy, the dairy challenge program is probably one of the greatest things that has happened in the last 10 or 12 years here in in the us to give some of those kids think Jeff things. You've talked about, Jeff, that they go with a professor out to a series of farms and critically evaluate and, and have to write it up.
Dr. John Goeser (01:00:48):
Well, I appreciate you saying that Mike, I I'm on the national board for the dairy challenge and I wish that had been around when I was younger, cuz I mean, those kids I see come through there, they are so bright and it makes me feel intimidated, you know, by a 22 year old.
Dr. Mike Hutjens (01:01:07):
So yeah, and it's just amazing Jeffrey that, you know, the farms they go to, at least in Illinois, they went to all farms that 27,000, 30,000 on her avenues, how many things, how many things are wrong in those kind of farms. And yet those kids could diagnose and make two or three good recommendations that separated them from, from the other teams that they, they could see through this. And a lot of that had to do with economics and planning and expansion and, and boy, I guess Scott, the other thing we didn't talk much about this deer industry is really, really changing very, very quickly. And so I'm not sure where ball cam is going to be. I mean, how do you position yourself and your staff to do this? John, you're pretty insulated in the sense that you, you you're in a very critical area and of course mostly, you know that rock river, not only do they have a great lab here in Wisconsin, but they're all over the world all over the world. In fact John, thank you very much. A farmer Egypt basically didn't trust his labs in Egypt and now he's going to Germany in the rock river lab in Germany has just done yeoman's job for him. And cuz I get to see your results. And it's pretty amazing to see how Egyptian corn silage is not Wisconsin, Illinois, corn silage. Let me tell you that much. So very, very interesting.
Scott Sorrell (01:02:26):
Yeah, gentlemen, this has been a great discussion but they have flicker delight, which means it's it's last call. So what I'd like to do is ask each of you to kind of give us two or three things that you'd like to communicate to educators today and future educators. What should they know when going into animal agriculture?
Speaker 6 (01:02:49):
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Scott Sorrell (01:03:13):
And I will start with Jeff.
Dr. John Goeser (01:03:17):
Well, I don't know if I'm gonna answer your question specifically, but I've got a couple of comments Scott, so I've never really followed your direction anyway.
Dr. John Goeser (01:03:27):
And, and so my fir it's actually a question to Mike and I can't, I can't remember how it was phrased cuz it was 25, 30 years ago. But during my defense, I was what's I think it was the fastest way. It might have been the most efficient way to increase total amount of milk on a farm. And I was a aspiring PhD scientist thinking I had to come up with a biological question and I came up with some BS answer and then you gave me some look cuz you were on my defense. And he said, you just buy more cows
Scott Sorrell (01:04:08):
Dr. John Goeser (01:04:09):
Dr. Mike Hutjens (01:04:45):
Thank you.
Scott Sorrell (01:04:46):
Yeah. Dave, any final thoughts?
Dr. Dave Fischer (01:04:50):
Well, certainly I'm a little bit disappointed that Mike did not try to win a piece of pie during this power discussion. I have personally lost several pies or my wife had a bake several pies because Dr. Mike on the road would say, Aw, fish I'll bet you a piece of pie. And foolishly I'd say, well, I think we will. And I lost, I did win once or twice. So anyway, but I, I, I tell you what Scott and John and Jeffrey, I mean, this has been awesome to pay tribute to Dr. Mike. I've always said in Illinois to all of our dairy producers and, and still do that. The best thing that ever happened to Illinois was Mike hu coming into the state. Unfortunately it was not a good thing for Minnesota, but we were sure happy to have Mike with us. And Mike truthfully even like a, like, like a brother to me, my man, and your abilities, as we all talked about, John mentioned, we all try to mimic you on the good stuff. I mean, there's some stuff you do. I don't wanna mimic on the good stuff on the good stuff. And so Mike Mike toast to you, my friend, and thank you for all you've done for Illinois, for the state, for the nation and for the world you demand, you demand.
Scott Sorrell (01:06:07):
Yeah. Thank you. Well said, Dave, John, you wanna follow that?
Dr. Jeff Elliott (01:06:14):
If that wouldn't come up, I, I was gonna bring it up the piece of mind, you know, Mike, that, that speaks to the unexpected nature too, working with you, collaborating with you. And when you're, you're speaking in front of an audience, I mean, just, just we get into a topic and at times we've all listened to, to speakers that are boring. It is never boring working with you collaborating with you, listening to you speak and in our conversations, they they've always been that, that is one thing that I, I just I, I hold so dear thinking about our, our work together the one other aspect I guess that I, I bring to light would be the, the other person I seek to walk in, in their footsteps is my like dad. We not, not to take us down down that path too deeply, but I recognize in losing my father a few years ago, unexpectedly, we've only got a certain period of time on this planet.
Dr. Jeff Elliott (01:07:04):
We're renting space on this earth. And I have been absolutely blessed to work alongside Dr. Hutchins for, for a few years now. And at the same time with, with excitement, Mike you're with us I look forward to your continued work for year, hopefully years to come. And you you've done tremendous work for our industry. I, I hate to hate to think that yes, Illinois has really benefited from, from your work being near and dear to my heart as a, as a Badger. And recognizing you do have some strong Wisconsin roots, but you've, you've offered exceptional guidance, exceptional education. The fire that you bring day in, day out as recently as a few weeks ago is exceptional. So I, I look forward to you carrying that for years into the future, but also to reflect back on your career to this point, what absolute assets you are to our industry. And I will work very hard to walk in your footsteps and, and uphold the standards, very high standards that you've set for those of you that or for those of us that, that seek to walk in your footsteps. So I thank you for setting that bar so high.
Dr. John Goeser (01:08:11):
Thank you, John
Scott Sorrell (01:08:13):
Mike any final words?
Dr. Mike Hutjens (01:08:16):
Yeah, I just two very short ones. I first of all, thanks to ball Kim. This has been a, a fascinating, almost humbling, humbling experience. So I wanna thank David and John for taking time and Jeffrey time outta your busy schedules to be with us today. And, and I'm sure if anybody wanna listen to it or not, but my two parting thoughts, number one is we are in the people business and surround yourself with a good team. And I've been very blessed at Minnesota and Illinois here to some very good team. And the team is very broad ball cam is part of the team you know, and, and that that's, that's really gonna be important. And then the other thought very briefly is change and things change. It's amazing. We had a chance when you retire, you get a, you get to a look back 35 years, 40 years, and it's just amazing how things have changed. And I'm convinced that the next 40 years are gonna change a great deal more and just be ready and decide if you're at rock river lab, or if you're a ball cam, how are you going to change your company? The clientele, the farmers that you're gonna work with there in the future. And with that I'm just gonna sign off and turn it back to you, Scott. Thanks very much for everybody. Have a good one.
Scott Sorrell (01:09:29):
Well, Mike, you've been a, a great yeah, cheers.
Speaker 6 (01:10:14):
We'd love to hear your comments or ideas for topics and guests. So please reach out via email to anhmarketing@balchem.com with any suggestions, and we'll work hard to add them to the schedule. Don't forget to leave a five-star rating on your way out. You can request your real science exchange. T-Shirt in just a few easy steps, just like, or subscribe to the real science exchange and send us a screenshot along with your address and t-shirt size to anhmarketing@balchem.com. Balchems real science lecture series of webinars continues with ruminant-focused topics on the first Tuesday of every month. Monogastric-focused topics on the second Tuesday of each month and quarterly topics for the companion animal segment visit balchem.com/real science to see the latest schedule to register for upcoming webinars.